This invention relates to a patient chair for facilitating a fluoroscopic examination. Certain patients having muscular disability are unable to swallow properly. Therapy, if properly directed, can improve the patient's ability to swallow. To prescribe proper treatment, the patient's attempts to swallow must be observed so that a precise determination of the muscular involvement and resulting swallowing impairment can be made.
The current practice for observing the patient is to place the patient in front of an X-ray machine with the X-ray table in a substantially vertical orientation. The patient is given liquids of varying consistencies and the patient's attempts to swallow are viewed fluoroscopically. It is these observations that lead to the treatment approach in the first instance with subsequent examinations being made to determine whether the treatments are leading to any improvement in the patient's ability to swallow.
The patient must sit up or stand up. Many patients are so muscularly impaired that they cannot sit up. In these instances, the current practice is to place the X-ray table in a vertical attitude and to raise the foot plate to a position for sitting. The patient is seated on the foot plate with as many as three attendants holding the patient in position for a front view of the swallowing process and thereafter shifting the patient for side views of the process.